Digging deep into the concept of “BEST”

Posted by Mrs. McGrath on Saturday, January 28th 2012     

In our latest Unit of Inquiry on energy, one of our Guiding Questions is “What is the best energy source? Why?” As we have been going to the rotation classes of various alternative energy sources such as hydro, wind power, biomass etc. we have always been evaluating this idea by looking at the pros and cons of each energy source. However, on Friday, we had a chance to take one step back and look at the bigger concept of “the best”… what exactly does “best” mean? More than just energy sources, what other examples could we investigate in order to make meaning of this very deep concept?! The seed of our inquiry was planted when Mrs McGrath asked the class to share their response to many little questions like, “what is the best flavour of ice cream” or “what is the best pet to own?” or “what is the best sport”? As Yodalandians turned and shared, the passion and emotion could be felt in the air (and heard!!!) Voices got louder and the word was heard repeated over and over: “chocolate…chocolate…dogs…dogs”!!! We brainstormed and recorded our thinking on the board to answer this question: what does “the best” actually mean? The bouncing off of each others’ ideas resulted in fascinating definitions, which then led us to making a list of action verbs involved in the concept of “the best”… one of them that came up was convince and also persuade. This then led to another fascinating task of stopping to think about thinking - what were the students doing in order to convince each other that something was “the best”??! Was it just a matter of saying the answer in a louder voice?!! Did repeating the word over and over convince others that this answer was “the best”? How do people convince and persuade?? Our amazing session ended with a (unique Friday style) Museum Walk, where everyone “wore” their ideas of what techniques do you use to convince and persuade someone to change their thinking to your way of thinking and gave feedback to each other on what they read. Fabulous inquiring minds – Bravo Yodalandia!!!!!!!

This topic is all wonderfully connected to what we are integrating into Literacy CAFE over the next month or so, and each time we talk, Mrs McGrath poses the question: why did I just do that? Why did we have that discussion? Do you see the connection? As she likes to say, “It’s a scary place… but try to get inside my mind?!!! What is our plan?!”.

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word detectives at it again…

Posted by Mrs. McGrath on Saturday, January 28th 2012     

Having recently  had the most amazing inquiry into the “big idea” of what “BEST” means, part of our discussion turned to… drumroll please… word study!! We had arrived at a place in our inquiry where a list of action verbs associated with “the best” had been brainstormed. Three of them were fairly familiar to most of us, but one stood out as a “fancy professor word”!! PERSUADE. What do we know from Mrs McGrath?… spelling is all about meaning and how a word is built, so we felt an investigation coming on!!!!! Sure enough, the more we looked at the word, the more we began to see “family member connections”. This sent us off running to our favourite resources for word study information, which  then led us to notice new “building blocks” for our affix board. It was simply amazing that Mrs McGrath bumped into a real life example of a family member that very night in the local newspaper, and when we looked at it, the meaning suddenly seemed to make sense! See if you can piece together our investigation from the photos …

Grab that Thinking… don’t let those Reactions be lost…go to your Post-it notes!!

Posted by Mrs. McGrath on Saturday, January 28th 2012     

Yodalandia’s  “React and Responds” went to a whole new level this week, as we moved to a technique that helps active readers around the world… POST-IT notes!!! Mrs. McGrath was able to do an experiment that made our thinking visible. As we watched the final episodes of Roald Dahls’ book called George’s Marvellous Medicine, she challenged us to capture our reactions. Opportunities were given every so often, when the video was paused, to jot down what our brains had been doing. Was it predicting? What question was it asking? What emotion were we feeling at that particular moment? In other words, for every action, Please enable Javascript and Flash to view this Flash video.what was your REACTION?!! As we read more and more, the thinking became more and more visible… the notes were spread around our spot on the carpet until it looked like rainbows! At the conclusion, Mrs McGrath prompted us to look around and notice just how much active thinking had been happening – WOW! It was like an explosion of thought!! So, what’s the next step?? Use this trick at home with your reading, if it helps you, to make the juiciest ever “React and Respond” entry. When you grab little memory notes as you go along, it makes it super easy to “write from the head and from the heart” – it’s all there in front of you!!!! Good luck and BRAVO for being such active readers!

The spider web of connections comes together as we add a new element… Blind Drawing!!

Posted by Mrs. McGrath on Saturday, January 28th 2012     

Back to back was how the students needed to sit – no peeking!! As we continue to investigate features of procedural writing, it is important to try out our skills. So today we gave each other instructions on how to copy the drawing we (secretly) had in front of us. It was fun to compare the original with the drawer’s version! Feedback is an important feature of any inquiry-based classroom, and the Yodalandians practised giving helpful and constructive feedback… in other words, how can we improve our performance for the next time?! Mrs McGrath posed the burning question to think about: how is everything we have done over the past few weeks connected??! What is the common thread – just like a spider’s web? We have baked cookies; we have read Stone Soup and Jumanji; we have watched Roald Dahls’  George’s Marvellous Medicine and now we ahve played a game called Blind Drawing!!! There were certaibly some light bulbs going off above students’  heads… All this is in preparation for the next steps in Writing Workshop – more details and lots more fun to come!! Please enable Javascript and Flash to view this Flash video.

Karate Multiplication meets traditional algorithms at the end of the road…

Posted by Mrs. McGrath on Saturday, January 28th 2012     

It was an exciting moment in math class this week, as we arrived at the ultimate last step of multiplying… the place where most adults live (!!)… traditional multiplying using the short and efficient algorithm that is so well-known around the world. Having filled up our “toolbox” with many different methods of tackling harder multiplication questions over the past week or so, we knew that the height of glory would be entering the “adult world” of traditonal methods. It’s a big step, and often confusing to someone seeing it for the first time, so Mrs. McGrath helped us with a highlighting trick to show the sequence. We had some “student professors” comfortable with the process come up to  the board and model it again for us, as we tried it out at the desks. WOW, was the reaction from many. This is short, efficient and accurate!!! any others really saw the need to have those basic times tables “Boom Boom Boom” so that they wouldn’t be slowed down with the answering of the question (practise, practise, practise!!). Bravo to everyone for all your hard work – let’s keep practising and see how far we can take the concept! Two digit multiplying? Three digit multiplying? The sky is the limit as long as you have the underlying concept…!

It all connects… how does where you live affect how you live, Indian and Aussie style!!

Posted by Mrs. McGrath on Saturday, January 28th 2012     

We all had a lovely surprise on January 26 when two of our Yodalandian citizens came to school with something special. A.C. had prepared an information poster thatshe wanted to share with the class regarding Repubic Day, as celebrated in India. Completely on her own, she had researched through interviews and books to find out more about this special day, and wanted to share this newfound knowledge with the classmates. It certainly is an important day in India, and she was feeling her connection to her home country. The special treats that were handed out were most delightfully received by all!!!! Most coincidentally, J.L. had also come to school that day wearing a special reminder of how Jan. 26 is also a day of celebration in her home country of Australia!!! It’s a big world, in many respects, but certainly small and connected in many other ways…

Energy Rotation #4… Hydro power!!

Posted by Mrs. McGrath on Saturday, January 28th 2012     

Today, our class learned all about hydropower with Mr. O’Neel.  Brainstorming what hydropower means was tough but everyone had great ideas.  Ask your child if they can tell you more about hydropower.  Then, everyone took part in two different exciting activities.  In the first one, they tried to see how far they could get a marble rolling using angles and a ramp.  The connection to water flowing in a dam was quickly made.  For the second activity they created a waterwheel and used the power of water to raise a ping pong ball attached to a piece of string.  Check out some of these cool videos:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wDgGvPdAuTU&feature=fvw

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9-4Ll_v32RY

http://www.juliantrubin.com/encyclopedia/renewable_energy/hydroelectricity.html

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cEL7yc8R42k

A nuclear chain reaction… Grade 3 style!!

Posted by Mrs. McGrath on Wednesday, January 25th 2012     
Please enable Javascript and Flash to view this Flash video.Understanding nuclear energy at this level can be a tricky thing… unless you have a visit from some High School teachers who are able to put it in terms that a 9 and 10 year old can understand!!! Demonstrations and hands-on activities made yesterday’s presentation on nuclear energy extremely useful and entertaining. Imagine using over 100 balls to demonstrate how a chain reaction works… that’s what we did in the Lilttle Theatre! Then imagine using over 30 participants to demonstrate how heat released from nuclear fission is harnessed to turn it into electrical energy! It was like a “nuclear dance” of atoms being split, moving and changing from hot to cool, then creating steam which turned the turbine… Bravo to all the performers and a BIG thank you to Mr Ringo and Mr Reilly from the High School Physics Department. Be sure to ask your child what they understand from about this form of energy!!
The basics of Nuclear Energy for ISM Grade 3

Energy Rotation #3… Solar Energy!!

Posted by Mrs. McGrath on Tuesday, January 24th 2012     
Please enable Javascript and Flash to view this Flash video.Do you know that you can cook your food using solar (sun) energy?  Well, that’s what our class did today with Ms. Remoroza.  In pairs, the students made a solar oven using a gift box, aluminum foil, saran/ cling wrap, black construction paper, newspaper and tape.  Then they had the opportunity to tests out their solar ovens by cooking some s’mores…yummy!  As the s’mores were cooking, the class discussed why such materials were used to make their oven.  See if your child can tell you all about it.  We also discovered some cool facts about solar energy such as if you can harness or control the sun’s energy for just one second, it can light up all of the United States for 13 billion years!  How cool is that?!  You can learn more exciting facts about solar energy by clicking on the links below:

Inside the Sun 6:16

http://player.discoveryeducation.com/index.cfm?guidAssetId=4C82EEFF-714B-4366-A53B-708036F0C212&blnFromSearch=1&productcode=US

Solar Energy 1:41

http://www.we-energies.com/educators/renew/renew_pres/we_renewables.swf

Solar Power 101 2:04

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DFDn6eTV0jQ

How Solar Panels are Made 4:36

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qYeynLy6pj8

It’s been an “energetic” week!!!!

Posted by Mrs. McGrath on Friday, January 20th 2012     
Energy overview + alternatives for ISM Grade 3

Our latest Unit of inquiry called “Give Me Energy” has certainly been charged this week… with guest speakers and experiments and even baking of cookies! Mr. Dickinson, a parent, came in this week to talk to the Grade 3s about energy sources and why we should be investigating alternative sources of energy beyond non-renewable ones. The demonstrations were particularly useful in understanding this concept of energy being the ability to do work. Thank you again, Mr Dickinson. Enjoy these photos…Please enable Javascript and Flash to view this Flash video.

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Check out all of our student-written reflections here...

A big part of ISM is reflective thinking... being active thinking about your thinking!! You will be able to read all the posts written by the citizens of Philcanscot by clicking on the image above. Imagine, it will be almost as if you were right there on the spot with the students!! Enjoy !

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Here's a direct link to all of Mrs McGrath's classroom photos from FLICKR...

ISM has a Flickr photo account accessible on the portal page. However, if you click on the image above, you can have quick direct access to all of the wonderful photos that come from Mrs. McGrath's world of Philcanscot! There are so many adventures to view, so click away and enjoy being a "fly on the wall" !! Spread the word so that all overseas family and friends can see what is happening a world away!

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Check out all of our fantastic student-created videos here... Book Talks and more!

There are so many ways to demonstrate learning and understanding - gone are the days of purely doing writtten assignments! Information can be shared through the medium of video. Different students learn in different styles and certainly it's true that variety is the spice of life!! Are you demonstrating understanding if you can explain something orally?? Are you understanding if you can demonstrate a skill?? Is it good to spread the news about a great book that you just read??Absolutely yes!! Share your enthusiasm... Throughout the year, the citizens of Philcanscot will be doing some special video projects that are sure to create excitement. Click on the image above to see videos that have been created by our students. Enjoy - Hollywood, here we come!!